From the minute a baby is born, till the last second of his life, everything he does and needs is to feel secure. If he had good enough parents, they would provide him through his various developmental stages the ability to learn to trust himself and the world around him. That trust enables him to feel secure in his journey of life.

However, if for any reason the parents were not able to instill this fundamental feeling of trust, that journey becomes unbearable and fraught with fears and any conflict even the most simple become life-threatening. Therefore, to survive emotionally, he creates around himself a wall of control to feel secure. However, most aspects of life cannot be controlled, leading to frustration and depression. Addiction offers for the controller, a controlled place to lose control. Ironically, after acting out the addiction becomes the only place that the controller does not have control of. That feeling of lack of control is devastating, and the controller would do anything to regain the feeling of control even seeking for help, getting rid of the addiction itself.

Therefore, trying to control the addiction is just more of the same kind – control and more control. The only way to get rid of the need to control (and the addiction) is to learn to trust again.

That's what we do in therapy.